| Show = ALL FOR A UNION DEPOT Some Surprises at Council Committee Meeting Meet-ing When Attorneys Met It t Was a Mighty Interesting Session and Developed Into a Legal Sparring MatchRio Grande Willing to Put Up Bond of 100 000 to Erect a Station An Interesting meeting of the Council committee was held last night to hear the Klo Grande protest to the granting franchise on Fourth l i i of in exclusive P Vcatstrcet and the Oregon Short Lines claim for the granting of such franchise fran-chise The matter went over to next Thursday to allow the two roads to get together and agree upon another union depot franchise as tho attorneys of each road declared that their roads jverc In favor of a union station Tho Councilmen showed that they were In I favor of granting a union depot franchise fran-chise rather than separate franchises Present for the Rio Grande were General Gen-eral Superintendent TVelby Attorney Wnldemar Van Cott Assistant General Passenger Agent G W Helnls and Local Agent C R Alcy For the Oregon Ore-gon Short Line were Generil Attorney p L VIIlIaTi3 General Passenger Ii I Agent D E Burley and Assistant General Il Gen-eral Passenger Agent D S Spencer S JIany leading citizens were also present i pres-ent entThe Council WHS represented by I Messrs Thomas Eardley Robertson Bpjnce Sharp E JI Davis Fernstrom RIO GRANDE OPENED Attorney Van Coit opened the meeting t by stating the Rio Grande protest given In substance yesterday He said that l the granting of the franchise would forever bar the union depot and showed TIhrThe Rio Grande was In favor of Joining the Short Line for a depot to ba used by those roads and for all other i roads that might wish to use It In the I future He said that the Rio Grande would pledge Itself to join In a union r depot or erect on the site at once a I station of Its own as a union station I I that Is giving all future roads the right to use It This w as a surprise and caused great Interest Mr Robertson I asked If J the RIo Grande would be will Ins to put up a bond of 5100000 to the Council to erect such a station the work to be commenced In a certain time and Mr Van Cott at once said ies lie then went on to state the position of his client corporation answering all questions put to him by members of the Council SHORT LINE FAVORS UNION Mr Williams general attorney of the Short Line followed His position was that tho granting of the franchise was i not In any way a bar to the union depot but rather a furtherance of the pro I r ject He stated that his company was ready and willing to enter Into a union station project with the Rio Grande This caused also surprise and Interest But Mr Williams said that tho franchise fran-chise naked for would not have the result re-sult of shutting out the Rio Grande but was the same as that part of the old 1900 franchise giving tho Short Line an entrance to tho site Then followed a clever little legal battle bat-tle between the two attorneys the pith of which was as follows The Rio Grande sick vas that the Short Line fmnrhlbc asks for only a track and has nothing to say of a union station for I other roads and If It were granted the Rio Grande and otherioads would not be allowed tn It as part owners while by granting the former franchise the I two loads and nil others will have a chance to use It the builders by ownership owner-ship and the late comers by rental or other arrangement I SPARRING OF ATTORNEYS Mr Williams kept insisting that tho granting of the franchise was in fui Ihcrunce of the union station and by this time thos not Into the secret were beginning to get puzzled und the question ques-tion was asked by Councilmen Why If such uas the case would not the Short Line agree to the union franchiser fran-chiser Mr Williams eald that the Rio Giundc had already a truck on the i street and the Short Line asking for ono I was only fair Mr Van Cott quickly said We will concede that truck the whole of It and throw It back to the Council for the union depot franchise the track owned by the company to be used as a Joint traclc for union depot purposes Then Mr Williams said they would concede the track desired for the same purpose If a union depot was built Mr Van Cott said Yes but If that franchise io granted there will be no union depot This legal sparring was kept up for Homo limo and the upshot of the whole waa that Councilman Thomas said that as both roads were so eager to join for a union station and as the people wanted a union station and as ho favored fa-vored a union station there was only one thing to do and that was to let the matter go over so that the two roads cnn get together and agree at once on the plans and details for a union station sta-tion This was the general sentiment of the members present and It was decided to let the question rest until next Thursday when the two railroads arc expected to have arrived at an agreement agree-ment of some kind for the Immediate erection here of a suitable staUon or for franchises 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